Stick the Landing
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl, Oneshot. Alexandria AU. They were trying to keep it all a secret, but they weren't quite agile enough to pull it off. Featuring Michonne.


**AN: Let me just say that this is just a completely silly little oneshot/story/drabble thing that I did in response to a tumblr request. It's just for fun and entertainment. I'm not even a 100% happy with it to be honest, but it's been hanging out in my "done" folder for a while and it was finally time to let it go. For better or for worse, here it is. I trust you'll appreciate it for what it's worth (not much) and you'll forgive me for its faults.**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think, but be gentle, please. LOL**

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"You need to see Denise," Carol said. "I'm going to get her."

"No!" Daryl declared loudly. Carol immediately shushed him so he didn't wake the whole house. She wasn't really sure, though, if anyone had slept through the loud crash.

Any question she might have had about it was answered a few moments later when there came a knocking at the door.

"Carol?" Michonne called, her voice low. "Are you alright in there?"

"Fuck," Daryl spat, his voice lower this time than it had been when he'd tried to tell Carol that her plan to get him help was a bad one.

As the only one capable of scrambling up off the floor in any kind of a hurry, Carol put some distance between herself and Daryl while she tried to figure out what to do. She wanted to keep their love affair—if that was even what they might call it—a secret because Daryl was still processing how things might work in Alexandria and wasn't quite ready to take things public. But Carol wasn't willing to keep things under wraps at the cost of Daryl's well-being.

"Carol?" Michonne asked again, her voice growing a little louder with concern. If Carol didn't answer her soon, Michonne would come in. That's who she was. She wasn't going to worry about Carol's privacy if she thought she might be hurt—and a noise that loud would leave anyone to worry. "Are you OK? What happened?"

What happened?

That was exactly what they didn't want to explain. That was exactly what neither of them were prepared to explain. In fact, Carol wasn't exactly sure how they might explain what had happened. There was no way to explain it without making both of them the laughing stock of the entire community.

 _"We were changing positions and we clearly thought we had much more acrobatic ability than either of us really had."_

Carol wasn't sure how honest she could be about things.

But she wasn't sure she could lie. Daryl's back had taken the brunt of the fall—of his weight and hers—and he could be severely injured, even if his embarrassment was covering over his pain at the moment. Ignoring his possible injury might prove to be dangerous for him in the long run.

"I'm fine," Carol croaked, finally. "But—I need help."

"What the fuck are you doin'?" Daryl hissed at her.

Carol didn't feel she could explain herself entirely, so she moved around, ignoring her own body's protests and soreness, and found her nightgown to throw on. She grabbed the blanket off the bed and tossed it over Daryl on the floor. She'd just covered him with it when Michonne opened the door.

Standing there in a nightgown, Michonne looked very different from the woman that Carol was accustomed to seeing dismembering Walkers. They were coming to terms with that, though. They were learning the different sides of each other. Sharing a house and crossing paths in the wee hours of the morning was teaching all of them about the fact that each of them were several different identities all trapped in one body. That's what the world required of them now.

And it appeared that Michonne was about to learn about another facet of Carol—and consequently of Daryl—entirely.

"What's wrong?" Michonne asked. "What was that? It sounded like—like something broke."

"We've got to get Denise," Carol said.

"Is that—?" Michonne started around the bed and around Carol. She stopped, staring at Daryl on the floor, and stood with her mouth slightly open. "Daryl? What...?"

Michonne stopped mid-sentence and looked at Carol.

Carol shook her head at Michonne.

"Please don't say anything," Carol said. "It's bad enough as it is."

Michonne closed her eyes. Carol knew the expression well. It was the same expression she got whenever Judith did something that she was trying to come to terms with. Michonne had a way of stilling herself when her eyes were closed. She could be almost irate before she closed them, but when she opened them, she'd usually somehow returned to a calm and even keel.

Michonne licked her lips, but she didn't open her eyes.

"Daryl—do you normally spend the night in Carol's room?" Michonne asked.

Daryl gave Carol a look that almost made her laugh. She shrugged her shoulders at him. If his back was hurting him at all, he seemed to have forgotten it. Carol knew she'd landed hard on top of him, but maybe she hadn't done the damage that she'd thought herself capable of doing. Daryl's concerns, after all, weren't at all related to what his spine had likely suffered.

"The cat's out of the bag," Carol said softly, directing her words to Daryl. "At least—I think so."

"The cat is free and running around the house," Michonne said, her eyes still closed. "I'm going to help you with this, but—damn it—I deserve the truth."

Daryl cleared his throat.

"Not every night," Daryl said. Michonne opened her eyes and looked at him. Daryl swallowed. "Some nights she's spendin' in my room."

Michonne nodded her head.

"Are you—do you have anything on underneath that blanket?" Michonne asked.

Daryl shook his head, but he didn't offer a verbal response.

"What happened?" Michonne asked. She directed her question to Carol and Carol pursed her lips while she considered exactly how she wanted to answer the question.

"We..." Carol started.

"Misestimated the end of the damn bed," Daryl said. "You gonna get me off the damn floor or you ain't?"

"What's wrong?" Michonne asked.

"Could be broken," Carol said.

Michonne gave her a wide-eyed expression and Carol felt heat rising up in her face.

"His back," Carol added quickly. "I'm worried he might've broken his back. Or—at least injured it. He landed pretty hard. I sort of—landed on top of him."

Daryl covered his face with his hand. There wasn't any hiding his mortification and Carol felt exactly what he was suffering.

It was bad enough to be found out when they hadn't yet decided how to tell everyone. It would have been horrible to have been found out in the throes of things. But it was almost unbearable to be found out this way—letting Michonne and everyone else who heard the story know that not only were they having sex, but they were bad enough at it that they'd landed Daryl in the possible position of recovering from a serious injury.

If Michonne was horrified, though, she didn't look it. Instead, she laughed quietly.

"Didn't quite stick the landing," she said.

Her comment surprised Daryl enough that he dropped his hand from covering his face and glared at her.

"Shut up!" He spat at her, but he couldn't hold onto his anger. It melted into laughter. "Shut the fuck up! Fuck! I'll get my own damn self up. Ain't broke no way..."

"Probably not," Michonne said. "But it's going to be stiff in the morning." She snorted. "His back...I meant...I meant his back. I swear."

"Don't you think Denise ought to look at him?" Carol asked, her concern not fading as quickly as Michonne's, and apparently not even as quickly as Daryl's.

She walked over to where Daryl was and moved to help him since he seemed determined to get himself off the floor. Michonne tried to help him, too, so that he could keep a hand on the blanket that was preserving any modesty he might have left.

With a little assistance, Daryl was able to move to his feet and then back onto the bed, even though he groaned over the effort.

"For the love of God," Daryl said. "I don't want us goin' for Denise. Because she's gonna bring Tara. And Tara can't keep her mouth shut and it won't be ten minutes before Glenn knows about it. And he's gonna tell Maggie."

"And before the sun's up," Michonne said quickly, "the whole group knows what we already knew." She shook her head at both of them. "Don't act so surprised. This was the first time we have actual visual proof, but don't think we haven't known about it for a while."

"You ain't known no such thing," Daryl said.

"I knew we didn't have raccoons or bats or—or whatever the hell it was you told me were living in the guard tower," Michonne said. "Those noises I heard at night were nocturnal animals, but they were more of the two-legged variety—and don't think I didn't notice that they were only prowling around whenever you were on watch."

"If you knew, why'd you look so damned surprised?" Daryl asked as Carol got him settled into the bed and tucked pillows behind him to keep him comfortable.

"I didn't expect to see it with my own eyes," Michonne said. "And—to be honest? You were quieter here than you were there. Until you made it sound like you were tearing the whole house down around you, of course." She raised her eyebrows at him. "You better be glad you didn't wake up Judith or I'd have come in here a lot more pissed off than you'd have wanted to see me—at least once I made sure that nobody was hurt."

"Daryl is hurt," Carol said.

"I'm fine," Daryl said.

"He's fine," Michonne said. "His pride is hurt. Yours too, maybe, but I think it'll heal."

"What if it's something we don't know about?" Carol asked. "Back injuries are serious."

"See Denise in the morning," Michonne said.

"Fuck no," Daryl said.

"You ought to at least let her see you," Carol urged.

Michonne laughed.

"Tell her you fell down the stairs," Michonne said. "Tell her I tripped you. Tell her I pushed you, if it makes you feel better. Whatever it is you've got to tell her. Your secret's safe with me. But—I'm giving you twenty-four hours to tell everyone you're together. However you want. After that? I can't promise that I'll keep my mouth shut."

"What are you going to tell Rick about the noise?" Carol asked.

"Let me handle Rick," Michonne said. "I'll just tell him you fell out of bed. That's all he needs to know. Twenty-four hours, though. I'm serious. You tell or I will."

Carol walked around the bed and slid in under the blanket next to Daryl. She expected him to shy away from her, especially with Michonne still in the room, but he surprised her by dropping his arm around her instead like he wasn't ashamed at all for Michonne to see the gesture. Carol curled into him.

"Goodnight, kids," Michonne said with a laugh. "No more gymnastics. At least—not for a while."

Carol bid Michonne a good night and Daryl said a quiet good night to the woman, as well, before she left the room and closed the door behind her. Carol sighed and rooted a little closer to Daryl. He reached and switched off the lamp beside the bed that he'd first switched on when he woke Carol up some time before.

The lamp never went off until Daryl was truly ready to sleep.

"Are you sure you're OK?" Carol asked in the darkness. Daryl hummed. "You'll go and see Denise in the morning?" Carol asked. Daryl hummed again. Carol swallowed. He was still holding her, but he was quiet. Even for Daryl, he was quiet. "Are you mad that Michonne found out?" Carol asked. He didn't respond. "If you don't want to tell anyone, Daryl, we don't have to. I mean that. I'll talk to Michonne. If you don't want them to know...it doesn't matter to me."

"Don't care if they know," Daryl said finally. "You heard her. They already know. Was just us we were keepin' it quiet for. That don't make no sense, really."

"Then what's wrong?" Carol asked in the darkness.

"What?" Daryl asked.

"I can practically feel you worrying," Carol said. "What's wrong?"

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Nothin'," he said. "Go to sleep."

"I won't be able to sleep until you tell me," Carol responded. "What is it?"

Daryl was quiet for a moment until he finally hummed at her.

"I was just thinkin' about where we went wrong," Daryl said. "Was good, weren't it? Right up until...she's right. Next time? We just gotta figure out—how the hell to stick the landing."


End file.
